2 Glorious Weeks in sLOVEnia
Today’s post is a travelogue, people. Hard to reconcile love of travel with a low carbon lifestyle, so we assuaged our conscience with a journey by train and a few tons of sequestered carbon bought on the website of Tree-Nation, a platform that promises to plant trees worldwide in an ecologically sustainable manner. I hope the promise of the website is true. Please let me know, anyone, if you know otherwise. The tickets of the Austrian Bundesbahn (Railways) said: 83 kilos of CO2 avoided for each of two tickets from Vienna to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Once there, we rented a small car to travel roughly 1000 km in Slovenia (pop. 2 million, area 20,000 sq. km). We were blessed with sunny skies and post-summer balmy weather, not too hot and not too overrun. Here are a few photos instead of the usual words.
Spiral stircase, Ljubljana Castle (click on photos to enlarge)
Lubljana is a small, beautiful, walkable city. There is a castle, with dungeons and a respectable dragon, There’s a puppet museum, and a dragon’s egg, at the top of the castle. You can queue for the cable car if you don’t want to climb. Lots of restaurants and cafés in town, along the river, fresh produce galore. Everything reeks of nature here, clean air and lots of people racing through the town on bicycles.
Mountain lakes among peat marshes near Rogla
Stalacties and Stalagmites in the caves of Postojna.
The Postojna caves stretch to 24 km and were carved by the Pivka River over millenia, creating dazzling chambers of stalactites and stalagmites. The Pivka River ultimately flows into the Black Sea. A train takes you 3 km into the interior of the cave and then picks you up again after a guided walking tour of around 2 km on foot. Well worth a visit.
Looking out on the Adriatic from the Piran Peninsula, simply step off the rocks to swim in the warm water
Trieste and Italy a short ferry ride or swim from Piran
The Adriatic on three sides around Piran
Leaving Piran with regret. Water temperature around 24C in mid-September
Lipica, birthplace and breeding grounds of the Lippizaner horses used by the Spanish Riding School of Vienna
A foretaste of the Julian Alps. View from Srednja Vas
Pure mountain streams
Pristine waters and carefully regulated hiking trails speak of great respect for nature
Lake Bohinj, a jewel amidst the Julian Alps
500 m above sea level, the water was warm enough for swimming at 20C.
Lake Bohinj
This is a country where most places, especially in the mountains, nights are still dark enough to see the stars. Nature is close to you here. Go there, treat it with as much respect as the local people do. Be prepared to walk a lot if you want to enjoy it. Take your trash with you when you leave, though you might find that the heart lingers, reluctant to leave…
A is for Amazon
By now mostly everyone who reads the news knows that Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is the world’s richest man, and his customers worldwide are increasing his wealth to the tune of US $ 250,000 per minute! Now, I don’t envy anyone their wealth, especially when it’s been earned through hard work and strategic, long-term thinking. But I do believe that with great wealth comes great responsibility. Other large companies are doing more than paying lip service to the idea of reducing emissions to save the planet. Google’s Waymo has ordered 20,000 Jaguar i-Pace electric cars for its driverless car fleet (an upgrade from its current fleet of Chrysler Pacifica minivans). Even the city of Munich, capital city of BMW’s home state of Bavaria, is encouraging taxi firms to experiment with adding electric cars to their fleets.
Jaguar i-Pace. Image courtesy Jaguar usa.
I can well understand the indignation of the writer of the article in Clean Technica who says, “Amazon thumbs its nose at Sustainability, orders 20,000 conventional Mercedes Sprinter Vans.” Admittedly there are only a handful of companies that can supply the electric vans needed, but that’s just how young industries get a leg up, with the support of far-sighted leaders of companies and corporations who not only look to the bottom line, but also to the welfare of society at large. In Amazon’s case, it appears, the bottom line takes precedence over benevolence. Maybe this is the most important explanation for Bezos’s immense wealth.
As a self-published writer, I’m in a quandary here. I was an early adopter of Amazon’s superb self-publishing tools provided by CreateSpace (for print-on-demand paperback books) and Kindle Direct Publishing (for e-books). I have published four books on Amazon and have three more novels in the pipeline. The novels have been well reviewed by a few readers, so if someday sales improve, I will be making Bezos richer still. What should I do? I need some advice here.
In looking for answers, I found the following New York Times article helpful; a review of a book by Anand Giridhardas entitled “Winners Take All,” a critical look at philanthropo-capitalism as it is practised in the USA today. Ironically, the first place I looked for the book was on the Amazon website.
How much Prosperity?
Around 2009 economist Tim Jackson wrote a book called “Prosperity without Growth” that attracted the attention of policy makers worldwide. Maybe the excitement was mainly in the academic community, but I do know that Tim Jackson was sought after by policy makers and politicians for several years after the publication of his work. I assume the latter were looking for advice about ways to institute policies that would ensure deep systemic change. Of course they did not get any useful information. Jackson’s answers only showed what had to be done, not how to do it. That ‘how to’ is the preserve of politicians and, ultimately us, the electorate.
This brings me to the real reason for failures of governance. Us. We. The. People. Many years ago I had a brief interview with the foreign minister of a country and asked him why he did not implement what we both agreed would be a common sense measure to enhance regional food security at practically no cost. The helplessness implicit in his reply was illuminating. One of the ‘aha’ moments of my life. “Bring me a mandate,” the minister said, “and I will gladly take this decision.” In that moment, like cascading coins from a slot machine, the realization dawned. In democracies, it is us. We have to use our starling intelligence, as members of the swarm to mould societies as we wish. In travels through many countries I’ve noticed that where people sit back and complain about the government, the corruption, the lousy politicians; they are not doing anything much to change the status quo.
Starling image courtesy Wikipedia
In the words of George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian, we have only the one planet, but we’re living a four-planet lifestyle. In 2018 Earth Overshoot Day fell already on the 1st of August. This is the earliest date since the practice began in the 1970s, calculated by the WWF and the Global Footprint Network. This is the date when humanity’s annual demand on Nature exceeds what the Earth can regenerate over the entire year. In other words, this is the date when we begin to rob the bank. And most of us, good people, in our struggle to provide a comfortable life for our families, in ensuring livelihoods for our children, are totally oblivious to this. So before the politicians act, we have to change ourselves, reduce our demands on the planet. Sometimes this can mean enriching our lives by doing more with less. And very often this change begins with an inward journey that only we can make. No politician can ever do this for us. The transformation that the world needs is inside of us. All of us.
aviott 